Police Plan For Refugee Influx

Cubans Would Be Sent To Temporary Centers, Then To Resettlement Camps

Police officers are ready to scan the beaches and swing into action the moment they see a boatload of Cuban refugees on the horizon.

They will pick them up and whisk them away to a temporary holding place, such as a school or warehouse.

This scene won't happen only in Key West or Miami. It could occur in Deerfield Beach or Dania.

Broward sheriff's deputies are among law enforcement officers from Monroe to St. Lucie counties planning for a possible influx of Cuban refugees.

Officials of seven counties have been asked by the state to develop emergency plans should South Florida face another exodus like the Mariel boatlift of 1980, which brought 125,000 Cubans to the United States.

The spectre of Mariel arose last week when Cuban President Fidel Castro threatened to open a port on the island and allow Cubans to leave the country.

When Castro took that stance 14 years ago, more than 125,000 Cuban refugees poured out of the port of Mariel and into South Florida, overwhelming state and local resources. Another mass exodus appears unlikely, with U.S. warships prepared to block the island and prevent boat traffic.

But Florida officials are asking local governments to prepare for a refugee crisis, just in case.

In some cases, local plans already existed and many of them were intended for Haitian boat people.

"It could be one or two [refugees), or it can be 1,000. We don't know, so we have to prepare for the worst," said Lt. Col. Walter Laun, the Broward Sheriff's Office deputy director of crime prevention.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has selected 20 to 25 temporary refugee holding centers in seven counties, said Harold Joyner, an analyst with the state Division of Emergency Management.

The state won't identify the sites, citing security reasons. Laun said officials fear protests by residents if the sites are made public.

In Broward, the Sheriff's Office will set up temporary command posts on beaches in Dania and Deerfield Beach, the only two coastal cities in its jurisdiction.

Sheriff's officers, deputized as immigration agents by the federal government, would swarm the beaches and detain the refugees if an illegal boat arrives. The Cubans would be taken to holding sites, state officials said, where they would be kept for probably no more than six hours.

The federal government then would gather all refugees at one processing site, possibly Homestead Air Force Base. After 72 hours, the refugees would be sent to 10 resettlement camps outside Florida.

But Broward and other counties could shelter refugees for a few days if Dade became overwhelmed or if the federal plan failed to kick in right away.

Palm Beach County is planning to house refugees in a 200-foot Port Authority warehouse in Riviera Beach if necessary, Assistant County Administrator Vince Bonvento said.

"We don't anticipate a large landing of Cuban refugees on the Palm Beach coastline. Our input is more likely if another county is overwhelmed," Bonvento said.

Broward County officials are taking a wait-and-see approach and have no specific refugee plan outlined, said Arthur St. Amand, the county's emergency management director.

He said state officials had assured him that no refugees would be housed for any amount of time in Broward, and the only processing center would be Homestead Air Force Base.

It's unclear who would pay for the temporary housing of Cuban refugees. Ultimately, the state and local governments expect to be reimbursed by Washington.

About a year after the Mariel boatlift, Palm Beach County was reimbursed $180,000 for sheltering 2,000 Cuban boat people at the South Florida Fairgrounds and the old armory, Bonvento said.

Broward also kept Mariel refugees at the National Guard armory on State Road 84 in Fort Lauderdale. Broward officials were not available to comment on the cost of processing refugees during Mariel, and whether the county got its money back.